Tackling the story of heavy metal is nothing new, there have been countless books and documentaries on the subject. Most I’ve seen have needed multiple episodes from the likes of Bob Nalbandian and Sam Dunn and even they have to edit out a lot of stuff to fit the story and because of time constraints. So Thore Vollert and Jorg Soontag are attempting to tell the tale in 90 minutes, the results are mixed because of it.
There are 3 ways to effectively represent the story: interviews with artists, old tv and concert clips and narration to flesh out the story and move it along. The big names are here from Hetfield to Page to Ozzy, the tv clips are impressive especially from German show Beat Club that I’ve never seen before. The coverage of the late 60s and early 70s is handled well but then it starts to lose me a little. Sometimes it loses me a lot. There is much on the influence of punk and glam yet nothing on prog rock giants Rush, Genesis and Yes. Having an interview with Blondie and a segment on Roxy Music and not mentioning Thin Lizzy had me scratching my head. There’s next to nothing on Van Halen and the development of guitar gods like Yngwie, George Lynch and Randy Rhoads, the MTV era and its influence is not even mentioned. Quiet Riot had the first heavy metal album to go to number one in the US and it’s not brought up yet they cover Slade. Power metal is brought up but it’s the newer acts like Powerwolf and Sabaton featured at the expense of Helloween and Manowar and do we really need to hear Michael Schenker again taking all the credit for UFO and Scorpions? Nope.
Moving on to the 90s there’s nothing on Pantera when they kept the genre alive and is there a heavier album to ever go to number one? I don’t think so. Nothing on Sepultura. There’s a lot on Alice Cooper yet little on Kiss, how many metal musicians have you heard picked up a guitar because of Ace Frehley or saw Kiss, the answer is many. If you can’t get an interview or the rights to footage it’s vital the narration fills in the blanks. It doesn’t. There’s interviews with Steel Panther, too much on Ghost and David Draiman from Disturbed is very good. Then there’s the inclusion of Life Of Agony and next to nothing on grunge, which do you think had the bigger impact on metal? A few minutes with Sixx AM, that’s a no from me. Nikki Sixx on the impact of Motley Crue would have been better.
By far the biggest exclusion is Ronnie James Dio who I believe is mentioned once in an interview with Doro. You ask any metal head to name the iconic singers in the genre and Ronnie is right up there. His influence is MASSIVE vocally, musically and visually. Don’t include more footage of Running Wild and Blind Guardian at the expense of Ronnie. Would have been nice to include interviews with some magazine writers who were there at the time as well as some record industry folk to share their views. It needed more on the twin lead guitar sound of Judas Priest and Iron Maiden. Overall a decent and at times frustrating watch. If someone asked me to grade it out of 10 I would give it a 5.
Richie.
